Position from Scale in After Effects

Download Project Files here.

Setting Up the Expression

1. Double click on the Space Quote Precomp to go inside of it.
2. Once there, hit Cmnd-A (Mac) / Ctrl-A (PC) to select all the layers.
3. Cmnd-click (Mac) / Ctrl-click (PC) on the Null layer to specifically deselect it.
4. Parent the rest of the layers to the Null by dragging the swirl symbol from any selected layer to the Null layer.
5. Select any Parented layer and hit S for Scale.
6. Option-click (Mac) / Alt-click (PC) on the stopwatch next to Scale.
7. In the Expressions box, type in the Expression below.

 s = [];

ps = parent.transform.scale.value;

for (i = 0; i < ps.length; i++){

s[i] = value[i]*100/ps[i];

}

s

1. With the Scale property still selected, go up to Edit > Copy Expression Only.
2. Once there, hit Cmnd-A (Mac) / Ctrl-A (PC) to select all the layers.
3. Cmnd-click (Mac) / Ctrl-click (PC) on the Null layer to specifically deselect it.
4. Hit Cmnd-V (Mac) / Ctrl-V (PC) to paste the Expression to all the other layers.

Animating the Word Cloud

1. Move the Playhead to the origin.
2. Click on the Null.
3. Hit S for Scale.
4. Hit Shift-R for Rotation.
5. Hit the stopwatches next to Scale and Rotation to set keyframes.
6. Set Scale to 210.
7. Set Rotation to 25.
8. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;00.
9. Set Scale to 320.
10. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;20.
11. Set Scale to 0.
12. Set Rotation to 0.
13. Shift-click on all the Scale keyframes.
14. Right-click on any selected keyframe and navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.

Animating Rotation

1. Pick any three of the words to animate next. The larger words work best. For example, we’ll be using Cosmos, Us, and Of.
2. Click on Cosmos.
3. Hit R for Rotation.
4. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;04.
5. Hit the stopwatch next to Rotation to set a keyframe.
6. Set Rotation to 70.
7. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;10.
8. Set Rotation to 0.
9. Click on Us.
10. Hit R for Rotation.
11. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;26.
12. Hit the stopwatch next to Rotation to set a keyframe.
13. Set Rotation to 25.
14. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;10.
15. Set Rotation to 0.
16. Click on Of.
17. Hit R for Rotation.
18. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;00.
19. Hit the stopwatch next to Rotation to set a keyframe.
20. Set Rotation to 65.
21. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;10.
22. Set Rotation to 0.

Final Scale

1. Go back to the Main Comp by clicking Main Comp in the Project Window.
2. Click on the Space Quote Precomp.
3. Hit S to open up Scale.
4. With the Playhead at the origin, set Scale to 3.
5. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;10.
6. Set Scale to 120.
7. Select both keyframes.
8. Right-click on any selected keyframe and navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.

Video Transcription

Hey, this is Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop. 

And in this story, I'm going to show you how to use a position from scale expression in Adobe After Effects. So the position from scale expression has objects. Take their position from a scale property, but not the size. What I mean by that is that usually altering the scale of a bunch of objects will change their size and position.

Well, this expression will have the object objects just move without change in size. So as you can see, here's what the project looks like when it's done. And this technique is great for exploiting graphics as one blocks of items to move outwards together without changing the size. It's fine for logos, graphic style explosions or blocks of text like this here.

I've also got another example here. Take a look at this so you can see what I mean. Like that. So the only external asset that we're going to be using is a texture file that's going to be included in the project folders. You don't have to worry about too much, and you can find the project file with that asset included in the video description below.

All right. So let's get started. So first thing we're going to be doing is double click to go inside the space picker and you're going to see all these layers. Don't worry about how many there are. What we're doing is actually relatively simple So the first thing that we're going to be doing is that you see that there's this note here, right?

And if you're not familiar with what I know is basically an empty object. It's really good for connecting, pounding a bunch of layers to it. So by moving around the knowledge, move around all the layers and all those layers, take their cues from that. No object So the first thing that we're going to be doing is we're going to be selecting all the layers, what de-select we know, because that's not what we want selected.

So basically everything else, everything else in this picture we're going to be grabbing and then we're going to check with them and have them connect them all. And as you can see, they're now all linked to the no object. So if I were to move an object, they all move around with it. So what I'm going to be doing next, by the way, you may have seen me like unlock this before.

Don't do that for yourself. Sorry, that was just messing up a bit. But basically we're going to be hitting any of these words less. I'm going to choose the word cosmos. I'm going to hit this for scale. I'm going to hit alt or if you have an extra option and I'm going to be posting and it's been a particular expression and expressions are basically bits of code that instruct the program to automatically performance for an action.

And I'm going to leave this again. I'm going to look for a window around here, an interface so you can pause a video and take that down for yourself. But basically what assuming it's instructing after effects, hey, I want you when changing the scale I want you to ignore the size. Don't change the size of the word cosmos, but I do want you to move it along.

And what I mean by that is here, look, when I move the scale of the null see, everything else shrinks and moves. The cosmos just moves. And that's the look that we're going for. So with that done, I want to click scale and I want to go to I want to go to expression only. Sorry. So this like that can't be expression only.

Then I want to select all my layers. I'm going to de-select my hitting control or command on the layers. I don't want that to be set into. And then command V or control V and everything else. Let's see. Yeah, it's all red, which means that they're open pasted by the way, if copying down that expression is long, we're also going to be linking the spreadsheet.

It is from in the description. Now, since we want this look to kind of explode out of the center, put your playhead at the origin. I'm going to hit scale. We're going to put the hit. That's not much to start a keyframe. And I want it to be, like you said at the beginning. So I'm going to make it like 320, and you don't have to tell me exactly but like a nice big number.

And then about 2 seconds in earlier. Well, earlier, little earlier. Yeah, around 10 seconds. And I want it to be at 100%. There we go. I'm going to select both my key frames right click. Keep resistant, easy ease, and we'll see how that looks. All right. So slides in like that. So then a bit of rotation can also help this like dynamic field.

So we're going to start by rotating the null first and then some the words. So I'm going to hit shift are on my null and put the plate at the origin. I'm going to put my rotation at 25 degrees. That's stopwatch to keyframe it. And then I'm again like on 2 seconds. Let's go back. There are 2 seconds. I want it to be just, you know, zero degrees around 2 seconds and then I'll see Cosmo's I want it also to rotate and here's where kind of like you could pick and choose what numbers you want this to rotate by.

I just want to do a mix of big and small letters. So here rotation I want Cosmo. I was just going to put it like I don't know if I move that over there. We could, you know, Cosmo straight back up to zero and you know what? I also want all these rotations to be easy as well. And I want to like do two more letters.

You choose whatever you want I'm going to skip ahead. All right. Once you rotated those letters, let's see what it looks like. Very nice. OK, so now let's head back to the main over here. And by the way, I just want to show you that there is a glow effect already applied to this column. In effect, controls. You see you know, just to give it a nice well, pretty straightforward all if you wanted to that you're something you go to effects type in glowing describe it and drop it on to this layer this pre comp now to some exploding effect we're going to animate the scale of Krypton and then we're pretty much done so

let's hit S for scale and let's see when to stopwatch over there to set a key from the origin I'm going to put it at very small amount three so it's not like totally disappearing but you know it's quite small and then in ten frames because ten times is quite quick, I want this thing to like whoa, explode out and I'm going to put it at 115 for its final size.

I'm going to hit, I'm going to make these, you know, my key frames. I happen to have them keyed to me just for the circle button. I can do that. But for you you can do Keyframe Assistant this is now let's play that. All right. There you go. There is our effect. So I can mention this effect looks great on blocks and moving objects.

You can do this with your logos, connect typography, title cards, a lot of moving pieces, anything where you want that kind of like graphic look like explosion. So that's all for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed learning how to use position from scale expression and Adobe After Effects. Let us know in the comments. Have you guys have any questions or any suggestions for future tutorials?

We would love to hear from you. So yeah, drop a comment and this has been Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop.